Description

One of the better 11- climbs on Lemmon and should be on your tick list if you're after routes at that grade. Start in corner trending out and right onto face. Then up through crux to larger holds and slightly left to a rest. Up and over small roofs to finish. Anchors are just out of sight over the last roof. Most stop at the chains rather than taking it to the top.

Location

2nd bolted line from the left. Follow the bolts up and slightly right.

awesome moves, sustained, very well bolted and thought out, pretty much free from the super-sharp rock that is so characteristic of windy point climbing...what more there is to a classic, i don't know.

oh yeah, a sport route can't be a classic unless it's at least 12a, i forgot.

Well Jon, I put it on my list of Top Dozen Mt. Lemmon 5.11s, so you know I like it. I think a lot of us are hesitant to give that last star because we are so used to a 3-star system on Lemmon. I don't know why Eric and Cres only gave it 2.

Maybe because it would make a rad trad line which then might put it in a league with Lizard Marmalde Direct. It is a Mt. Lemmon three star route when you take the old school prejudice out of it, and now it has three from me.

This route was lead entirely on gear by Dean Brault or Jimbo. It is a good place to do a trad lead, if you doubt your gear then clip a bolt.

ah yes, the ol' baker's dozen. lots of good lines on there. i'm slowly making my way through the list. good stuff.

i can see how you might resent the bolting if you thought it could go clean, eric. i know you're definitely a strong enough climber to lead it on gear. for me, though, it looked way too scary for a gear lead. the placements seemed mostly sketchy and far apart. i don't think i'd ever be able to do this climb if it was all gear, or even mixed. i think that for this route, the difference between bolts and gear is the difference between 30 ascents a year and 5 ascents a decade.

This route was done on gear with some bolts originally. Scott turned it into a sport route as an experiment to see if people would climb it more. We know the answer to that.

I think you could lead this on gear if you wanted to. Start by clipping bolts and putting in gear then gradually reduce the bolts where you can get good gear. It is a good training route for placing gear.

I hear what you're saying, John. However, I don't agree that routes which can be done on gear should be bolted. There is a huge number of quality sport climbs at this grade on Lemmon, giving persons who want to work up the sport grades plenty of climbs to do.

There are far fewer quality trad/mixed lines at this grade, leaving less options for someone working up the trad grades. It was for this very reason that Solar Flare's bolts were removed by the FA after consulting with the MP community (which, by the way, was a very cool thing to do. Kudos to Eric!)

a fair point, geir. there aren't many trad lines of the grade on mount lemmon. i would probably agree with you if the placements didn't seem so shady. maybe the gear's better than i thought at first glance, though. i'll have to take another look the next time i'm on the route.

To name a few: Straight Arrow, By Cracky, Jungle Gym, Credibility Gap, Bron-yr-aur, Outward Bound, Helm's Deep, Joy of Cooking, Obscured by Clouds, Easy Slider, Steppin in a Slide Zone, Pegasus, Perspective, Last Supper, Running from the Devil, Goosed but Smilin, Valhalla ... And I'm not even to the Reef yet.